The arrangement of the floor in a private house makes the house suitable for life, and the comfort of living depends on the quality of the work carried out. In fact, the floor is the top layer of the floor, which divides the house into zones - basement, living space, attic. If the house has several floors, then the essence of the overlap does not change.
Floor types
For a wooden house, it makes no sense to come up with any other solution than the usual one - flooring along the floor beams, since it does two things at once - it raises the floor covering to the required height, forming a basement, and isolates the floor from the effects of ground or flood waters. Floor beams are built into the frame of a wooden house immediately after the basement of concrete blocks, bricks, or at a height of 3-4 crowns from the ground, if the frame of the house is built entirely of wood.
The ends of the beams can be either hidden in the log frame or pass through it. The latter option is considered more reliable, because possible accumulated moisture will be removed through the end of the beam. The ends of the beam, fixed in the frame, are usually treated with antiseptic materials to prevent decay. If the length of the floor beam is more than three meters, then additional reinforcement is possible in the form of beams placed on the end, columns made of bricks or solid wooden ridges. Wooden reinforcements, from the end that will rest against the ground, must be treated with antiseptic materials. Brick columns are erected on a solid foundation, preferably small concrete slabs, ready-made or self-poured, under which several layers of roofing material are placed for waterproofing.
For a floor beam, it is best to use a material with a cut edge - a beam or a half-beam (a log with flat edges on both sides). The cross section of the beam must be exactly the same as the section of the main wall. After the device of a reliable base, you can proceed to the floor covering device. In general, good building practice suggests that the horizontal level formed by the floor beams is done immediately after the beams are cut into the walls of the log house. Therefore, in the finished log house, minimal work is required for checking and final adjustment. If the floor beams are cut at a height of less than 50 centimeters from the ground, then it is mandatory to carry out antiseptic treatment of all the main walls in the underground and the floor beams. This will extend the life of the wooden house. The floor covering itself on wooden beams can be either single-layer or with a black floor device plus a finish coat. Two-layer floors are obviously warmer than single-layer ones.
For the device of the subfloor, there is no need to use not only tongue-and-groove lumber, but even edged lumber. Ideally, floorboards should be kept in a sparse pile before being laid for at least six months. This will prevent possible warping of the floorboards. If it is necessary to lay raw boards, then they are not immediately sewn with nails to the beams, but are pressed against them with boards nailed in three or four places. The boards are laid from the edges to the middle, and a gap 5-6 centimeters wide is left in the middle, into which wedges are hammered. As the boards dry, the wedges weaken, they are gradually knocked out. This process continues for three months. After that, the floor boards can be tightly nailed to the beams. The thickness of the subfloor boards must be at least 40 millimeters.
The finished floor is laid across the subfloor boards. It is best if it is a well-dried tongue and groove board. It will not be superfluous, especially in the kitchen, to lay sheets of roofing material between the subfloor and the finishing one. The sheet piling itself is beautiful and aesthetic, with good painting it can last for decades. It is also an almost ideal base for all other types of coatings - linoleum, carpet, parquet, laminate. If it is laid dry, then they do the same with it as with the boards of the subfloor. A good tongue and groove board can also serve as the base of a single-layer floor in small country houses where winter residence is not expected.
The device of the floor on the beams on the supporting pillars
It makes sense to do the floor along the beams on the supporting pillars in houses built entirely of brick, aerated concrete blocks or natural stone. This is due to the fact that wooden beams embedded in walls made of these materials rot very quickly, even if they are thoroughly antiseptic. For the installation of supports for floor beams in the basement, the places for the construction of support pillars are marked. The frequency of their installation depends on the cross section of the floor beams. Usually, the distance between the support posts is 1 meter, this makes marking easier and enough so that the laid beam does not sag.
Small depressions are dug in the marked places; there is no point in digging deeper than 50 centimeters. At the bottom of these recesses, which have the scientific name "pit", a layer of fine gravel is laid and carefully compacted, after which a layer of waterproofing material is laid on it. Most often, you can limit yourself to pouring a certain amount of hot tar. The supporting pillars are laid out exclusively from red brick or wild stone. Their best form would be a truncated pyramid with a wide base. It is simply dangerous to use silicate brick or aerated concrete blocks for these purposes. You can use small concrete slabs that are used to lay out sidewalk paths, or fragments of concrete piles from construction.
Beams built into the frame
Support pillars are erected without careful determination of the upper level, because this is practically impossible, but at least an approximate coincidence of levels must be observed. This is where the laser level comes in handy. All leveling of the floor level is carried out after all the columns are erected. The floor beams along which the floor will be laid are first laid on the two extreme rows of pillars, and using the building level, the horizontalness is checked, first along the beam, then between the beams. The beams are leveled exclusively by placing wooden pillows on the pillars.
The tops of the pillars must be covered with several layers of roofing material so as not to cause decay in the tree when it comes into contact with the stone, and the cushions to be placed must be carefully antiseptic or smeared with bituminous mastics. After the extreme support beams are aligned, lay the middle one and adjust it to a certain floor level. Next, the beams are placed in each half and aligned between the extreme and middle beams. All support beams must not come into contact with stone walls, the distance between the end of the support beam and the wall must be at least 2 centimeters. Their ends must be carefully treated with an antiseptic, smeared with bitumen, in extreme cases, burned at the stake until the top layer is slightly charred. If it is impossible to use solid beams due to the large area of \u200b\u200bthe room or the lack of good lumber, the joints of the beams must be on the same support column.
Since the installation of supporting pillars with a height of more than 50 centimeters presents a certain difficulty, and, in addition, reduces their stability. All wooden parts of the structure from the side of the basement must be treated with antiseptics, and small windows should be arranged in the walls for ventilation. After the installation of the system of support beams, it is possible to lay the floor covering on them in the same way as is done when installing the floor on wooden floor beams. However, it is worth considering that the floor erected in this way is low from the ground, so it is best to make it double, with a subfloor and an upper one made of dry tongue-and-groove boards.
The disadvantages of a floor erected in this way include the fact that it “lives” separately from the entire structure of the house, so even if they constantly live in the house, heat stoves and ventilate the underground, such a floor can warp over time. If it is an unheated and non-residential premises, in winter the floor covering will almost certainly skew. Arranging the floor in the house, and even with your own hands, is a rather difficult and responsible task. However, if you have already found the mental strength in yourself to take on the construction of your house (even if it is a small cottage), then you should not have any problems with flooring. Most often, wooden floors (parquet or tongue-and-groove board) are equipped in private wooden houses, but there are exceptions, which we will discuss below. Flooring in a wooden house can be done in several ways. One of these methods is the installation of the floor on the supporting pillars.
Floor on pillars
The floor on the supporting pillars is mounted only if the installation of the floors in the log house does not provide for the laying of load-bearing beams in the wall structure. In this case, the floor mounted on poles is "floating", i.e. not associated with load-bearing walls. The device of floors in a country house on supporting pillars is as follows:
- Before installing the support pillars, we excavate the soil from the underground space. The depth of the excavation must be at least 50 cm.
- We fill the resulting cavity with river sand, gravel or crushed stone.
Advice! We spill the backfill with water and carefully compact it with rammers. The backfill level after compaction is completed must be at least 20 cm higher than the ground level around the house.
Floor beam system on supporting pillars
Then we proceed to the installation of support pillars. For supporting pillars, it is preferable to use red brick (rather than silicate). The cross section of the supporting pillars directly depends on their design height: the higher the pillar, the larger the cross section is required to ensure a sufficient level of stability. Brick support pillars up to 250 mm high are laid “in one and a half bricks”, with a height of 250 mm or more - “in two bricks”.
It is also possible to install concrete support pillars. In this case, the dimensions of the support pillars range from 400x400 to 500x500mm.
Floor beam system on supporting pillars
Then we install the support pillars inside the house. The installation step of the internal support pillars should be 70-100 cm, depending on which constructive floor solution you are going to use.
A variant is possible in which the installation of floors in a country house does not provide for the installation of internal support pillars. In this case, to ensure sufficient strength of the floor, it is necessary to use beams of the appropriate section.
We lay waterproofing on the ends of the supporting pillars (most often - 2-3 layers of roofing material).
plank floor
On top of the waterproofing, we lay load-bearing beams made of solid pieces of logs or timber. In the case when the use of solid beams is not possible, we position the beams in such a way that we level the beams with the help of wedges and wooden spacers. After all the beams are level, we fix the position of the wedges and spacers with nails. After the beams are fixed, a subfloor can be laid on them.
Arranging the floor in the country house in the manner described above is not advisable if the house is left without heating for a long time during the cold season. In such conditions, the ground under the house freezes, which over time leads to unpredictable displacement of the support pillars. To avoid this, the maximum raising of the bedding level is used, as well as the use of coarse gravel in the upper layer of the bedding.
Single plank floor
The device of floors in the country sometimes requires that the floor be as simple as possible both in manufacture and in operation. In this case, the simplest single plank floor is equipped in the country house. If you plan to live in a country house during the cold season, it is better to spend time and make a double floor or a floor with insulation. A single floor from boards is done as follows:
Single floor boards are laid on support beams or on logs laid on top of the beams. If the design of the house provides for the embedding of beams in the walls, then laying the log is mandatory, since in this case the distance between the beams will be too large.
If the plank floor is built on supporting pillars, then it is possible to lay the support beams immediately, taking into account the requirements of the floor. Moreover, if the distance between the supporting pillars is 80 cm, beams 100x100mm can be laid. For poles, the distance between which is 1 meter or more, beams 120x120mm are used.
If the beam system satisfies these requirements, the tongue and groove floor can be installed directly on top of the beams. If not, it is necessary to equip a grid of wooden logs.
Logs are wooden bars with a section of 50x50 or 60x60mm. The distance between the lags laid on top of the support beams is determined by the width of the boards from which the floor is planned to be laid.
So, if a grooved board 28 mm thick is used for flooring, the logs are laid in increments of 50 cm, with a board thickness of 38 mm, the distance between the logs can be increased to 60 cm. After the logs are laid out on the beam base, with the help of wooden wedges and spacers, we set the entire log system to the level, and then securely fix it with nails. Over the lag of a single floor from a tongue-and-groove (if the floor is planned to be finished) or unedged (for a subfloor) board. After the floor is laid, you can start laying the floor covering. The best option in this case would be the installation of linoleum floors, as an inexpensive and practical material. If we plan to use the plank floor as a finishing one, then it should be scraped off, and then varnished once or several times. The above method most often produces a subfloor in a wooden house with minimal time and money. However, such savings adversely affect the thermal insulation characteristics of the floor. Therefore, it is still better to equip a double floor.
Double plank floor
The device of the floor in a frame house in two layers is made if you plan to live in it not only in summer, but also in the cold season. The double floor includes a rough floor of slab or uncut board and a finished floor of tongue and groove board. When arranging a double floor, we fill the so-called cranial bars on the beams and lay the subfloor flooring on them. So, how is a double floor arranged?
A tile floor can be laid on a wooden base.
We make the draft floor from boards, the thickness of which can be from 15 to 45 mm. In order to save money, for arranging a subfloor, you can use a low-grade board, slab, unedged board. Note! The draft floor is laid exclusively from coniferous boards! We fit the subfloor boards tightly to each other. It is best if the boards are treated with an antiseptic before laying. After laying the subfloor, we cover it with a layer of insulating material. One of the time-tested options for warming the subfloor is to cover it with a layer of a mixture of clay and sawdust. The mixture is applied in a layer of 30-50 mm.
Expanded clay is also used as a bulk insulation for a double floor. The expanded clay layer during backfilling should be within 5-10 cm, however, it should be borne in mind that the gap between the thermal insulation layer and the finished floor should be at least 10-15 mm. After laying or backfilling the heat-insulating materials, we lay a finishing floor from a tongue-and-groove board over the subfloor. If floor insulation is not enough, it is also possible to install a warm floor in a wooden house. At the same time, most often the choice is stopped on electric underfloor heating, since equipping a water floor system in a house with wooden floors is a rather difficult task. We fasten the boards to logs or cranial bars with nails. We hammer nails at a distance of 20 mm from the edge of the board on each side, at an angle of 35-400.
In addition to grooved flooring, parquet flooring is also possible. Naturally, in this case, appropriate adjustments will have to be made to the laying technology. And this is a floor scraper. If it is necessary to deepen the hats. To do this, we attach a metal finisher to the nail head and, with a hammer blow, deepen the head by 2-3 mm. To ensure ventilation of the underground space in the corners of the room, we make holes with a diameter of 50-60 mm. We close the holes with decorative gratings raised above the floor level by 15-20 mm to prevent liquid from entering the underground. For better ventilation of the underground space, in addition to vents in the floor, it is necessary to leave (or make) ventilation holes in the basement. However, in different rooms, laying the floor has its own nuances:
- The device of the floor in the basement implies, first of all, high-quality waterproofing. After all, it is the basement floor that is most susceptible to the influence of groundwater. In the basements of private houses, earthen or concrete floors are equipped. However, if you plan to use the basement not only as a warehouse or technical room (for example, a generator room), but as a living room, then it is better, of course, to lay a wooden floor here with a good layer of insulation, or even heating.
- Concrete floors are also one of the most common types of garage flooring. The technology of self-leveling floors made of concrete allows you to quickly and efficiently equip a floor that is resistant to mechanical stress. In addition, treated with modern impregnations, concrete acquires a fairly presentable appearance.
- Also, if you have marble or granite chips at your disposal, it is possible to install mosaic floors in the garage. According to their performance characteristics, they are not much inferior to concrete floors, and in appearance they are much superior.
- In the corridor or in the kitchen, a self-leveling polyurethane floor, or rather, its decorative varieties, would be appropriate. Also in these rooms it is possible to tile the floor with tiles - traditional tiled, porcelain stoneware or made of natural stone.
Tile floor. The classic option for finishing the floor in the bathroom is ceramic tile flooring. Naturally, when laying tiles in the bathroom, it is necessary to take into account the peculiarities of the wooden base, and to carry out work related to waterproofing very carefully.
In addition to tiles on the floor in the bathroom of your home, you can lay a moisture-resistant laminate.
Flooring on a balcony, especially on an open one, involves the use of weather-resistant floor coverings. In such conditions, impregnated deck boards perform well, as well as tiles, primarily clinker tiles.
As you can see, the technology for installing wooden floors in a private house, although quite complex, is still available for development. Therefore, armed with the necessary tool and acquiring the necessary baggage of knowledge, feel free to get to work. And we are sure that very soon you will walk on a self-laid floor in your home. It's worth the effort, isn't it?
